Creating Emergence has been quite an adventure for me. I recorded all but 1 of the eight tracks in my home with Garage Band on my laptop. By using my keyboard directly connected into my computer, I was able to record the majority of these tracks without any background noise (Emergence was recorded in my living room with my grand piano). Through trial and error and my ears, I tweaked the mixing. What I continue to be amazed at is how the recording process and playing process was as easy and smooth as it was. I don't write down what I play. I sit down, press record, and allow what I am feeling/experiencing to play through me. This feels to me like channeling more than composing. I often, record more than one track of piano to give some layering/texture. I very rarely need to edit for the two tracks to interact in a way that I find intriguing and calming. Again.....this feels as though I'm working with the universe. I don't think this kind of recording process would work if it was just me doing all the heavy lifting!
As I've been recording during 2021 and 2022 this album started to form itself. Though many of these tracks I released as singles, they seemed to be a part of a slightly larger musical journey that I was feeling urged to share. Here are some notes/intentions on each track. My hope is that the listener will first listen without knowing my intentions and process so that they may form their own experience and opinions but once listened, my notes may be interesting to some.
1. Quieting Tremors- This piano solo is intended to settle the nervous system. The texture and melody lull and caress while the occasional flourish nudge feelings and experiences the body is ready to start to process, surface.
2. Solitude- Continues to strip away mind chatter and nervous system activation. This track was intended to take the listener deep into themself, soothing in one second and stirring in another. There is a feel of haunting loneliness and bare bones to this track. Beauty in the stark.
3. Awakening the Deep- I used the bird song in this track to immediately calm and brighten the listener. Nature so often grounds us and just hearing the bird song can ground the body immediately. The piano can then enter and begin to inquire. What within wants to speak? What needs attending to. This track was intended to take the listener deep and to then move and play with what arises. There may be parts in this track that surprise and activate parts of the psyche that have been buried.
4. Becoming- The low drone in this track is intended to serve as a musical breath. Grounding, helping to nourish, and serving as a divine pedal point to the piano that starts to create itself. Fragmented at first, the piano tracks dance, play, and experiment until by the end of the track they join to sing their full melody. This track is intended to support the inner process of creation within the listener. What is wanting to be born? What is the listener on the brink of becoming?
5. Ancestral Blessings- A respite, a blessing, a Celtic gift of play. This track is the only track on this album to be a live recording of a piano solo I played in a Celtic Show at a theatre awhile back. I took the songs Down by the Salley Gardens and the Irish Washerwomen and improved on them. I felt like this track adds a nice resting place for the listener after Becoming.
6. Souljourn- A bit of a departure from the rest of the album, this track starts with the cleansing sound of rain. Calming and grounding, this rain allows the strings (synthesizer patch) to begin to sing and build. This track takes what is becoming and what has presented for the listener and adds the Cosmos to the mix. The soul, the divine, something bigger than ones self. This deepens and awakens the divine within so that all is deepening and expanding.
7. Solitude (ambient version)- I use the bird song again in this track to soften and once again ground and uplift. Though I've used the piano from Solitude, the addition of the birdsong and an ethereal descant string line bring an interested flavor that to me softens the percussive elements in Solitude (piano solo) and increases the haunting quality. This track is meant to start to bring the listener slowly back to their senses.
8. Emergence- Once again I use the pedal point/drone to ground and start to bring the listener back to consciousness. The piano soothes and allows the listener to integrate what has conspired in the last 7 tracks. Hopefully the listener emerges feeling relaxed, nurtured, and loved from this half hour musical meditation and journey.
My hope is that Emergence will help to bring some peace and soothing support to anyone in need. I believe that music can effortlessly heal and uplift. The frequency of music with the intention of love can effect the human nervous system in an amazing and balancing way. May this music bring the listener comfort.